Snapshots of camp's history remain steadfast in the minds and hearts of camp pioneers, moving beyond the boundaries of time. In a series of interviews with several American Camping Association (ACA) Pioneers, Camping Magazine chronicles the spirit of camp's yesterdays. Let us honor the past and embolden the future of camp -- Camp's very nature is evolving. As the earth transforms with the seasons, organized camps have reshaped and molded outdoor recreation in powerful ways over the decades, tearing down the walls of indifference to the environment, prejudice, and education, all while enjoying the changing trends in clothing, transportation, and food preparation (hotdogs roasting on sticks and s'mores seem to be permanent delicacies...).

Before urban sprawl infringed upon the land, camps were settled on large plots of acreage. In the '20s and '30s the wilderness went on for miles, now the lakefront wilderness factor is only in the trees. "The wilderness isolation is not like it used to be. We were used to the freedom of the woods, and we decry its passing as the years go by," notes Fred Rogers. Stores grace every corner it seems, but the modern camper does not complain. Rogers explains, "They are used to the commercialism around them."

In the '50s, campers went about their tasks unfettered by environmentalism. They drank from clear streams and lakes oblivious to pollution. "Our only rule was that we scrubbed our dishes at the lake down shore from where we drank water and swam. We cut down saplings for tent poles, and dug trenches so the rain would not seep under our tents," says Robert Telleen. "I remember seeing canoes draped in water lilies that campers would gather in the bogs." The camp staff of today tread lightly on the land, teaching environmental awareness and recognizing their impact on nature.

Alan Stolz tells of his purchase of Camp Cody in 1959. At the time, the camp had a Middle-Atlantic, well-to-do, suburban clientele and limited outdoor programs. Stolz and his partners made sweeping changes to the camp: "We expanded the Cody programs to include team and individual sports, an industrial arts curriculum, nature and science outdoor programs, ocean marine biology, and more high-adventure trips. The walls of segregation came down. We opened segregated buildings, totally opening the camp. We hired staff for what they could offer the kids, and we opened hiring to international staff."

Recognizing the Value of Camp

Camp has been incorporating more and more professionalism over the years. Camp has always been touted as educational, but no anecdotal evidence was available in the '50s through the '90s. Only until the late '90s, when the American Camping Association (ACA) began focusing research into the area of outcomes, has camp begun to be understood as a valued educational experience.

Much of the strides that have been made in the recognition of camp's value stems from camp directors acknowledging and fulfilling their camps' stated missions. "A person I knew in church had a vision of starting a camp for kids to just have fun, and that was the mission for many years. ACA standards and the Camp Director Institute really pushed camp executives to define their mission. As a result, camp directors more often define segments of their camp's mission, including health, safety, and development--it's [the mission] now spelled out and equitable with healthy development goals for children," explains Telleen.

Changing Trends

Clothing

What did campers wear through the decades? Jean G. McMullan describes the evolving uniforms of Alford Lake's campers:

"In 1915-1929, the standard wear for girls was long, serge royal blue bloomers worn with long black stockings and white or blue pullover blouses with smaller collars. Former director of Camp Wyonegonic in Maine, Helen 0. Cobb, age 92, reports that in the '30s as a young counselor, she was incensed that teenaged campers were required to continue to wear long black stockings while younger campers were allowed to wear socks. She personally led a midnight raid on all the black stockings in senior camp, hiding them up the steep hills in the woods. The next day the director simply went to town and bought all the white socks he could find to outfit the rebelling seniors. And gone was an era!

"Clothes were sent to camp in wooden trunks in the early days. Now we have campers arriving with canvas wheeled roll duffels and plastic trunks--foot lockers are popular, too,

"The '30s-'50s saw cotton, must-iron blouses change to knit (no-iron) shirts with camp logos. From high-laced shoes in the early days to sneakers to light strap-on Velcro[R] sandals to heavy hiking boots -- the footwear continues to change. From heavy jackets in the past to camp wear with the modern-day, rain repellent Gortex jackets -- apparel becomes easier to put on and more light-weight."

Transportation

McMullan recalls the early decades (1910-1930) of Alford Lake when campers arrived by steamship from New York and Boston to the Rockland, Maine, docks. They spent the night on the ship and arrived in the morning. They transferred to horse-drawn buggies and, later, to open truck "buckboards." Today they arrive by chartered buses, small planes, limos, and private cars.

Transportation at camp from the 50s on has made dramatic changes in risk management and safety. "It was not unusual for the back of a wooden-sided pick-up truck to be loaded with thirty campers as they drove us through the woods. Carrying campers in open truck beds was common. The safety aspect was different then. Now we have a balance between safety and unrestrained fun," explains Telleen.

Food Preparation

Camp foods in the '50s were made from scratch. Camp staff would carry spice kits. No prepared foods were available. Campers might carry dry macaroni and wedges of cheese that would not go bad for the day and make macaroni and cheese. On the first day of a trip, a group of hungry campers might take along pounds of frozen hamburger that would thaw during the day. They would cook a meat casserole or hamburgers later that day. "We would do some creative cooking, too. We would bake cakes and pies in the reflector ovens. Baking in reflector ovens is a real art -- you must stack the wood to burn at a 90-degree angle, in a rock-lined fire pit so that the reflector oven can carry the heat around and behind. We would use tongs to turn the cake. I can remember horrible disasters with the cakes dotted with charred wood. Or, you might wind up with a wonderfully baked cake," remembers Telleen.

The joy, discoveries, and teachable moments that camp offers children and adults have endured through the decades -- some things never change. With the advent of ACA standards in the '40s, safety and risk management practices have evolved and become the norm. Telleen explains, "In those days we had a cavalier attitude, like we were going on holiday and nothing bad could happen. Now the safety practices at camp are vastly different and rightly so." While the days of campers sitting on rooftops, draping canoes with water lilies, or riding in old pick-up trucks through winding, narrow roads in the woods are over, a safer, more environmentally conscious camp prevails and will continue to enlighten generations to come.

RELATED ARTICLE: For the Love of Camp

Fred Rogers

Just a neighbor boy to the vast and seemingly untouchable Camp Lincoln for Boys at Lake Hubert in Minnesota, he played ball with the campers, swam with them, and then went home to his family's cabin on the lake. The only difference between him and the campers -- he didn't stay overnight at the camp. It was 1926, and Fred Rogers finally got his chance to be a real part of Camp Lincoln. The camp lost its dishwasher. Rogers was there to take up the slack. A hard-working fourteen-year-old, he couldn't wait to help in the kitchen, carrying wood, water, and washing dishes. And, so began a remarkable career in the camp field as a food service and kitchen worker, counselor, director, and camp owner -- a career that spans decades of change and dedication. However, some things never changed: "I still have the same feeling of friendship and fellowship and wonder about children's resiliency," says Rogers, who served as the American Camping Association national president from 1959 to 1960.

Robert Telleen

Robert Telleen, risk management consultant and former national executive director of the YMCA of the USA, remembers how his camp career began: "I was eleven years old in 1951 during my first summer as a camper. I have been in camping ever since. I went through law school while simultaneously working my way up in camp. I decided I did not want to counsel from the legal side, but I wanted to counsel full-time in camping."

Alan Stolz

In 1937, Alan Stolz enjoyed the private camp life of Camp Delawana in Pennsylvania, and at Camp Onota in Massachusetts in 1939-1945; his devotion to camp remained through the meat and dairy ration ticket days and hanging laundry on shrubbery to dry because of fuel and energy shortages during the war. "Camp is about personal growth and accomplishment. That's the fun and the value of camp," says Stolz. He became active in the military and continued work in the camp field by leading a Boy Scouts of America troop on the base. Then, in the winter of 1959 he purchased Camp Cody in Freedom, New Hampshire. He has been camp owner ever since and served for many years as a member of the American Camping Association (ACA) National Board.

Jean G. McMullan

For Jean G. McMullan, her camp adventure began in 1934 as a Girl Scout. She advanced to counselor, founder, and co-director of various camps. She owned and directed Alford Lake Camp in Maine for thirty-two years and now serves as the resident consultant for the camp. Her dedication to the camp field is evident. She has shared her expertise in the camp field while serving as national president of the ACA from 1984 to 1986 and was awarded the ACA Distinguished Service Award in 1993.

A Camp Memory ....

My First Directive at Alford Lake Camp

I could barely contain myself. After seven years of delicate negotiations, Alford Lake Camp was ours. It was November 1962, and Mrs. Carleton Knight had "transferred" the camp to us. This momentous event was brought about by promising Mrs. Knight that we would say nothing about acquiring the camp until she was able to announce that after my assisting her in the upcoming summer Alford Lake would be carried on by 'someone from within the ALC family."

My husband, Andrew, and I walked down the beautiful woodland property to find Donald, the camp's caretaker, piling brush on an outdoor fire. I introduced myself as Mrs. Knight's new assistant. Donald barely stopped working to acknowledge us. He pushed his cap back on his head, straightened to his six-foot-four-inch frame and said, "Always nice to know who y'er workin' fer." And that took care of that.

As the three of us walked through the camp, I became increasingly, but secretly, dismayed at the condition of the buildings. Since Alford Lake had been there since 1907, some of the structures were badly in need of bringing up to American Camping Association standards. I looked at one small building where the front steps were rotted and unsafe. Inside, I was quaking. But, I decided not to waste any time in preparing for the summer ahead. "Donald," I said diplomatically. "I really think we need to repair the steps on this building." Donald peered at them as f he was just seeing them for the first time. He had a shake to his body, and it became more pronounced as he intoned, "Oh, I wouldn't do that f I was you!" I looked at him in sharp surprise as my first request was being denied. My husband leaped, perhaps a trifle too quickly, to my aid: "Donald," said Andy, "Those steps don't need just repairing, in fact -- they should be entirely replaced." "Why not replace them, Donald?" I asked. "Well ya see," said Dona ld, looking me straight in the eye, "You replace them steps, and the building 'll fall down!"

As we said goodbye to Donald, I determined that I had better take control or I would never be able to work with him. Besides, the steps had to be fixed. "Donald," I said lightly but firmly. "When we come back next time, we want to see those steps replaced." We drove off, waving back in a friendly fashion.

It was three weeks later that we made our second trip to camp. How would Donald have responded to my first directive? As we walked down through the woods, I was delighted to see, bright with new wood, a brand new set of steps. But, looking more closely and focusing with horror, we saw that the building had fallen down!

Lesson number one: listen to your caretaker.

--Jean G. McMullan

The Evolution of ACA

Humble Beginnings

On February 14, 1910, at the Twenty-third Street Branch of the YMCA in New York, the first inklings of a camp directors' association began forming through the efforts of Alan S. Williams of the Sportsman's. Show in New York. He gathered interested camp professionals, together to develop an organization called 'the; camp Directors Association of America, which eventually grew into a camp movement that has inspired generations. Initially, the groups members were men. In 1924 the group merged with the National Association of Directors of Girls' Camps and the Midwest Camp Directors' Association to create The Camp Directors Association. In 1935, the. name was revised with a more, national focus and became The American Camping Association (ACA), which "marked the general acceptance of a broadened scope to include all camping and all people interested in camping."

Many Homes but One Spirit

At 11 Beacon Street in Boston, members convened to further the organized camp movement. Moving to Hotel Commodore in New York and continuing to grow, the association ran into financial stress and moved its headquarters into the home of the ACA national president at the time, Herbert Twining, in Ann Arbor, Michigan--and then moving again to St. Paul, Minnesota, and Chicago, Illinois.

By 1954, the American Camping Association was fully established, and the ACA Board of Directors began to consider and plan a permanent home for the association's national office in Bradford Woods, Martinsville, Indiana. Nestled in a wooded setting indicative of many camps in the great outdoors, the association continues to thrive. ACA in these modern times is a community of camp professionals whose mission is dedicated to enriching the lives of children and adults through the camp experience.

The Pioneers of Camping Club (formed in 1985) offers special recognition for camp professionals with at least thirty years of experience and for camps which have been in operation for at least thirty years and affiliated with the American Camping Association. For further information contact the ACA National Office, 765-342-8456.